The City of Delta’s management continues their 20th century fascination with car culture. Last month I wrote about the extraordinary Council report where the Delta engineering department recommending concrete barriers to facilitate vehicular movement at 16th Avenue and 53A Street in Tsawwassen with solid double yellow lines for car traffic at this “T” intersection. There have been a number of vehicles that have ended up in neighbours’ yards and there is NO marked pedestrian crosswalk. Vehicles in Tsawwassen never stop for pedestrians.
This residential intersection is on a bikeway and pedestrian access point to a park, schools and to the commercial area, but no provision was made for vulnerable road users in this design. In fact the words “pedestrian” and “cyclist” were not mentioned once in the report to Delta council.
Subsequent to our comment last month, this report was pulled and the Delta Engineering Department has gone back to the drawing board. But not before temporarily plunking concrete barriers with tips that now preclude safe pedestrian travel on one of the corners of the “T” intersection.
Motordom reigns supreme with the City of Delta.
Old habits are hard to break. It is telling that their initial response to a supposed speeding problem was to channelize the northbound right turn so drivers could make the turn faster. But if they’re now installing a barrier at the northeast corner as an interim measure, then my guess is that there’s a history (or perceived history) of motorists failing to make that fast turn and ending up on the opposite property’s front lawn. Now at least the motorists who do shank that turn will have a nice, soft concrete barrier to cushion their impact instead of that deadly hedge lurking just behind it.
Part of the problem is just with people. More of us are quicker to complain about something we don’t like than praise something we do. Even if the City is able to transcend the 1958 Highway Capacity Manual and implement any one of two dozen treatments to actually slow vehicles down here, they’re going to give too much credence to the few complainers and probably not do much out of fear of that backlash. After all, it is never locals who speed. It is always others; hoards of speed-tourists who travel from all over the Earth just to speed up and down someone else’s local residential street. It is the locals who suffer in turn. Suffer terribly from all this traffic calming.
“Speed tourist” is inaccurate. Road hog commuters are not looking at scenery. Their eyes are slits; their focus on the tail lights of who is front; their fingers trigger-ready on the horn.
Remember the notion of a Sunday drive?
“See the USA in a Chevrolet …” Watch your tax money get pissed away.
The term “car culture” doesn’t fit. Less than half of bully motordom is cars. And it sounds, well, cultured.
Road Ragers; Petrol Heads; Road Hogs; Rat Runners; Crazed Commuters; Invading Hordes … need something suitably derogatory for SOV SUVS – the lowest form of the dirtiest word in transportation: commuter.
What are concrete barriers with tips?
tapered ends
I grew up in North Delta, I wonder what happened. Delta was actually pretty forward thinking with traffic calming on several streets where I grew up (116th, 82nd and some others).